By most accounts of emergency-response personnel and Kaua‘i and O‘ahu hospital workers, Gad Ho‘okano should be dead. When he was found by Kaua‘i Fire Department professionals curled up in the fetal position and not breathing, a pool of blood surrounding
By most accounts of emergency-response personnel and Kaua‘i and O‘ahu hospital workers, Gad Ho‘okano should be dead.
When he was found by Kaua‘i Fire Department professionals curled up in the fetal position and not breathing, a pool of blood surrounding his injured foot, everyone thought the worst.
They all thought he was dead, until one of the firefighters turned his limp body over and heard a massive inhalation, said Kaleo Ho‘okano, Gad’s father and a supervising lifeguard for the KFD’s Ocean Safety Bureau.
Still, nobody knew how long he had been unconscious, or what caused the injuries. He couldn’t breathe on his own, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
He didn’t even regain consciousness for two days, leaving doctors to assume that if he did not die he would live the rest of his life a vegetable, said his father.
But he is alive today, with no apparent long-term brain damage, under a doctor’s care on O‘ahu for foot injuries sustained in what Kaua‘i Police Department officials categorize as a motor vehicle accident with injuries.
“He was brought back to life. He was supposed to be dead,” Kaleo Ho‘okano said of his son. “It was amazing.”
And while the family and KPD officers are still trying to piece together the events leading up to the accident reported during the early-morning hours of Friday, Aug. 15, the Ho‘okano family rejoices that Gad lives, convinced that the prayers of family members, friends and others kept him alive, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
“His mom (Rae Ho‘okano) said everyone prayed for him and this is what happened,” Kaleo Ho‘okano said. “I definitely agree. He’s supposed to be a cabbage.”
There are a few blanks in the story, as Gad Ho‘okano doesn’t remember anything about that night except that he and a friend who was driving Ho‘okano’s car on cane roads makai of Kaumuali‘i Highway between Pakala and Kaumakani were on their way to a bakery to get something to eat when something happened, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
His son had been drinking that night, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
Where Gad Ho‘okano was found by a harvesting supervisor with Gay & Robinson sugar company was a couple hundred yards away from where his car came to rest, with the car not seriously damaged, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
The driver of Gad Ho‘okano’s car isn’t talking to the police or anyone, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
Around 1 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 15, Kaleo Ho‘okano’s home phone rang, with the caller saying his son was at Kaua‘i Veterans Memorial Hospital at the West Kaua‘i Medical Center in Waimea.
When the parents arrived at the hospital, their son was on the operating table, his injuries treated so he could be air-lifted to Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu.
Kaleo Ho‘okano said X-rays taken at KVMH revealed his son had back and neck injuries, but subsequent X-rays taken at Queen’s showed no such injuries.
After two days in the Queen’s intensive-care unit, Gad Ho‘okano, 27, woke up, and told his parents he had been in a car accident.
There were even conflicting stories regarding the police investigation, with versions that Gad Ho‘okano had been beaten up, or was driving his car, or was a passenger in the car and had somehow fallen out of the car and had his foot run over by the car, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
Police and county officials did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment or updates on the ongoing investigation.
Doctors and emergency-room and ICU professionals at both KVMH and Queen’s all thought Gad Ho‘okano would end up dead or disabled, Kaleo Ho‘okano said.
The amount of blood found at the scene alone seemed to be too much to leave a human body and still allow the body to live, Kaleo Ho‘okano said KFD responders told him.
Associate Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
